Label everything with the date of purchase. Sharpie pens were created for this purpose. However you choose to keep track, rotate your stored food items the best you can without getting paranoid about it. Many of the “use by” and “best by” dates on canned and packaged goods are put there by the manufacturer but relate more to taste and texture than actual spoilage. See the next item.

Thomas spoke about these in his article on purifying contaminated water. Basically, the reverse osmosis water purification systems, like the one featured as #5, will take care of larger contaminents. Couple that with ultraviolet disinfection and the rest of water purification is pretty well taken care of without requiring anything too expensive. Remember that this system requires electrical power, so you’re going to need to take that into consideration. But with a solar panel generator, it’ll do the trick perfectly.

Coffee and Tea. I am a dedicated coffee drinker and hate the thought of a coffeeless existence! One pound vacuum sealed bricks are the most convenient way to store coffee, they stack well or can be kept in plastic totes efficiently. Tea is another good source of caffeine, and I love a cold glass of iced tea on a hot day. Remember that in a true crisis, you may have to maintain 24 hour watch, and caffeine is a big help in this.

11/4/18 Search & rescueEnable IntenseDebate Comments: Enable IntenseDebate CommentsFinding lost hikers in forests can be a difficult and lengthy process, as helicopters and drones can’t get a glimpse through the thick tree canopy. Recently, it’s been proposed that autonomous drones, which can bob and weave through trees, could aid these searches. But the GPS signals used to guide the aircraft can be unreliable or nonexistent in forest environments. read mor […]

In an end of the world situation, we won’t have to worry about too much salt or too much sugar. Our main concerns will be keeping warm, getting potable water and enough to eat. A steady diet of tuna fish, canned meats, pasta, bean and rice will quickly get old. You will be happy to have the sugary canned fruit which will add very necessary calories to your diet and provide energy. The high salt which is dangerous now will provide necessary salts when you have otherwise run out of salt for cooking. In addition, most of the prepared foods are prepared to appeal to our taste buds. Food companies spend big money on making “convenience”

In both his book Rawles on Retreats and Relocation and in his survivalist novel, Patriots: A Novel of Survival in the Coming Collapse, Rawles describes in great detail retreat groups "upgrading" brick or other masonry houses with steel reinforced window shutters and doors, excavating anti-vehicular ditches, installing warded gate locks, constructing concertina wire obstacles and fougasses, and setting up listening post/observation posts (LP/OPs.) Rawles is a proponent of including a mantrap foyer at survival retreats, an architectural element that he calls a "crushroom".[8]
During a June wildfire that ravaged the area—causing $40 million in damage and destroying 13 on-the-grid homes—firefighters discovered one of the bunkers and cabins after hearing about five minutes of “popping” sounds, according to a release from the Iron County Sheriff’s Office. When firefighters found one of the shelters, they discovered the sounds had been caused by explosive powder. They also found dozens of inactive novelty grenades that had been modified. The man who built the bunkers apparently planned to turn the grenades into useable weapons filled with explosive powder.

Kimberly – In an electrical power failure you probably have three days. If this is purely local outage then a generator is no problem. If it is a large event with scarce fuel available like hurricane Sandy, then that could be a problem without alt.fuel. If you only had 3 days you could yank meat out and cook it if you have non-electric cooking sources. I wouldn’t depend on more than 20 lbs of meat being useful after electricity failure. Is saving frozen meat beyond what you could cook immediately worth the expense of the generator, fuel, maintenance, etc. in a long term outage?

Durable packaging: Can it hold up to abuse, floods from storms, etc. For example, the biggest danger during an earthquake is things falling. Since it’s easy to imagine storing supplies like this on the bottom shelf in a garage, consider how it would hold up to stuff falling on top of the container or flood water coming in. Or zombies… those sneaky zombies.

Good point. But if you do have your drives and at least one very simple computer stashed away in an emp-proof container it will once again become useful when they eventually get the lights turned on again. And make no mistake about it. We will rebuild our civilization. Up to that point, yes, I entirely agree with you that hard copy is easier to deal with.
Anyway, another thought runnin’ round my brain as of late is a mistake Gaye’s friend did, “Yes, you can use oxygenators and all that stuff. I tried that and I ended up throwing out all the food. It was rancid. I processed $1,200.00 of food at a local church facility in Salt Lake City, Utah. I threw it out one year later. It was a volunteer church group that did not know how many oxygenators to put in each #10 can.” – //foodstoragemoms.com/2015/11/dehydrating-food-for-long-term/
Don’t let prepping overwhelm you because there are many companies wanting you to buy their product. And I agree with pat Henry, things are not as bad as what many think. I have been listening to doomsday talkers since 2011 about the imminent collapse around the corner and there will always be people saying this. So don’t rush to spend thousands of dollars. Do a little at a time and stay within your means. This is a good article because it gives you general categories such as a means to purify water, then food, then medicine, then security and also… Read more »
The system comprised four dugouts and cabins built of concrete and corrugated metal, and a few other spots where he stashed his provisions and arsenal of guns and ammunition in trash cans and barrels. All the shelters were illegally built across a 2-mile radius on state and federal property outside of Brian Head, Utah, according to a report from the Associated Press. Two of the shelters burned down in a wildfire last June.
“Everything started flying out,” she says. Buckets and cans rolled out of the pantry and down the side of the mountain. Hurricane Maria claimed almost all the food Jennifer had stockpiled, in addition to more than 30 chickens, two cows, four pigs, six ducks, and a turkey. “I had prepped for two and a half years, and I ended up with preps for six months,” she says.
While media coverage has often focused on a certain gun-toting, masculine segment of the subculture, both women described being drawn to prepping as a form of female self-empowerment. As Bedford sees it, finding yourself unprepared in the midst of a crisis can be a “terrible feeling of weakness” for a mother. “It makes sense to be empowered and trained and have the right supplies—and in this case, to have extra food on hand—because as a mom in particular, your family just relies on you,” she said.
You can find rice in any store in this world. It’s a cheap and healthy addition to your emergency survival foods stockpile. It will provide you with the carbohydrates that will fuel you through a disaster. Half a cup of dried rice makes 1 cup of cooked rice. When it comes to survival foods, rice will help you stretch your food supply without breaking the bank. Every time you go to the grocery store you should pick up a large bag of rice to add to your emergency food supply.

With nearly 90 percent of our critical infrastructure in private hands â€“ most of it interconnected â€“ intelligence top brass said there is a growing crisis that requires government and private companies to work together. â€œWe are in a crisis mode,â€ Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen told those gathered for the summit. â€œA Cat 5 hurricane has been forecast, and we must prepare.â€

Probably one of the very first things you have ever heard about prepping is that you have to store away large quantities of food. This needs to be prepper food that can be stored away for the long-term, perhaps enough food to last for six months to a year or longer. But what kind of food is this? Have you ever wondered if there is specialty prepper food? The answer to this question is yes and no. Confused? It’s actually more straightforward than it might seem.
I think most phones get emergency alerts like that for their area codes. I get general warnings and Code Pinks (abducted children) sometimes. But the apps I recommend are both broader and more specific. For example, with Disaster Alert, I not only get tornado and flood warnings in my area, I also get notifications for any severe weather headed towards me and things like medical alerts for flu and whatever.
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Include a few boxes of variously sized nails and screws and you are ready for impromptu construction, extrication or repair. Add tarps and plastic sheeting and you have the ability to create water proof enclosures or seal openings against movement of air. A multi-tool or Swiss Army knife is incredibly handy to keep on you or when you are traveling and do not want to pack the kitchen sink.

It is has been a couple of years since I wrote about some of the mistakes and goofs we all make while prepping. Since then, a lot of things have changed. For one, the mainstream media has caught on to “three-day kit” mania which means more and more families are now ready for short term disasters. On the other hand, threats from wacko foreign leaders have escalated to the point where terrorist-driven EMPs, pandemics, and outright wars have become more of a possibility, if not a probability. Talk about two very different sides of the same coin!
On a humid day in early August, I traveled to Wild Abundance, a homesteading and primitive-skills school in the rolling green hills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Founded by Natalie Bogwalker in 2012, the facility in Weaverville, North Carolina, offers courses in gardening, foraging, herbalism, tiny house construction, hide tanning, and any number of practices that might come in handy when living alone in the wilderness. It’s also a functional homestead with a sprawling vegetable garden and a series of charming hobbit-like outbuildings fanned out across a wooded hillside.

87. Shotgun – Many will argue if you could only have 1 weapon for home defense, the shotgun would it. The ammunition is inexpensive, is a long gun so there are less background checks when purchasing one, and can always double as a hunting gun. Also, if someone is in your home, and they hear the pump of a shotgun, it will scary any would-be intruder and for close range encounters.

Bogwalker, a Washington state native with a degree in ecological agriculture who built much of the compound with her own two hands, says she considers herself much more of a homesteader than a prepper. Still, she says she’s seen many women who identify as preppers take her courses. “I think no matter where you are on the spectrum with your definition of prepper, a lot of the people, probably 65 percent of my students, are curious about the future,” Bogwalker says.
Water Purification Supplies- If you run out of potable water, you’ll need the capability to make suspect or compromised water safe, or safer, to drink. Filters and chemicals can remove or destroy nearly all of the contaminants and germs that can make you sick or kill you. You must know what your purification solution is capable of, and what it is not. Some will not be able to remove germs or chemicals, and will require second-stage treatment to make the water source drinkable.
What Jennifer, a self-described prepper who declined to share her last name for security reasons, didn’t anticipate was the sheer force of Maria’s rains and 155 mile per hour winds — and how little the storm shutters would do to protect her home. “I was taking water out of the bedrooms, the living rooms, the hallways,” she says. “The house was flooded.” At one point, a piece of debris flew off a neighbor’s roof and got stuck between the outside wall of Jennifer’s pantry and the storm shutters, ripping off a pair of windows in the process.
The one thing which hits home to me is a reminder to keep following what Frank Herbert wrote in his Dune series. “Fear is a mind killer.” A little fear helps motivate but we, humans, seem to overdo even or especially in our emotions. Whether it’s the ‘net’ or the news, it seems people want to push that fear button to motivate others. So now when it happens, I teach people to take 3 deep breaths in and out s l o w l y. This allows the dino rational self to catch up with the emotional lizard. Having experienced a few ‘events’ in life. This had helped me through. Thanks for the list. Am going through these as an evaluation 😉 and reminder.
But scientists are even more worried in 2017. The newest Doomsday Clock was set at 2.5 minutes to midnight—the closest we’ve been to the apocalypse since the early 1980s—partly because of the “rise in strident nationalism worldwide,” the group stated. In particular, scientists cited serious concern about the U.S. presidential election of Donald Trump, who has “made disturbing comments about the use and proliferation of nuclear weapons and expressed disbelief in the overwhelming scientific consensus on climate change.”
When Kafrina hit a few years ago, it was unbelievable to see the number of people who decided to ride out the storm instead of evacuating. As the “reliality” of the destruction of Katrina was sinking in on TV, what was so horrifying was watching all these “hundreds” of people without water! And nowhere to get it! They were completely cut off from civilization! As the next couple of days passed on, and still, no relief in sight, I watched in horror the actions do these people desperate for water! I wanted so badly to reach through my TV and hand them a bottle of water, but could not do that! I never felt so helpless in my entire life. And they were killing each over in an effort to get to water! With all the technology, with all the electricity, with all of our knowledge, we could not get a bottle of water to these people, and some died on the side of the road in desperation to get to water! I have never forgot how quick a people can destroy theirselves over they lack of water, and also for their lack of taking other precautions to keep themselves alive!
In an end of the world situation, we won’t have to worry about too much salt or too much sugar. Our main concerns will be keeping warm, getting potable water and enough to eat. A steady diet of tuna fish, canned meats, pasta, bean and rice will quickly get old. You will be happy to have the sugary canned fruit which will add very necessary calories to your diet and provide energy. The high salt which is dangerous now will provide necessary salts when you have otherwise run out of salt for cooking. In addition, most of the prepared foods are prepared to appeal to our taste buds. Food companies spend big money on making “convenience”
Many of these foods are simple meals that require you to add water and heat (such as MRE's, or Meals Ready to Eat). However, if you buy individual bulk ingredients you can create more of a gourmet pantry which allows you a much greater range of meals to prepare—powdered eggs, spices, all sorts of flours, honey, etc. These foods are not only great for food storage but also for camping trips, especially if your camp kitchen is serving a large crowd.
Mel doesn’t subscribe to the “every man for himself” philosophy that is a hallmark of many preppers’ Cormac McCarthy-styled nightmares. “My grand plan is that I will build a community around me, rather than think that I will be in a post-apocalyptic bunker where I have to do everything. You don’t want to be scared of your neighbours and worry about whether they will take your stuff."
Sanitation Supplies- You definitely don’t want to overlook this! You don’t need to have everything you take for granted on a daily basis, but you need to take care of the basics. Most obviously get plenty of toilet paper, wet wipes and feminine products for cleanliness. Get more TP than you think you’ll need; trust me, the first time you have to use improvised material or technique to clean your rear, you’ll remember me, and women need more than men do at any rate. You may yet have to switch to pinecones, but let’s forestall that as much as we can, eh?
I know there are quite a few things we need to be aware of that could turn our world upside down, but having clean drinkable water does not get the credit it deserves. Is this because we are so used to the water just coming out of the faucet and we take it for granted. There will never be a water shortage on this planet, but there will be a drinkable water shortage. Have a look at this article about the looming water shortage.

The Pasta Alfredo has a very pleasing flavor, but the sauce tastes more like the gravy in biscuits and gravy, not alfredo. Specifically, it tastes of salt, black pepper, and flour, rather than parmesan cheese which is the hallmark flavor of alfredo sauce. Thin noodles with a good consistency (not mushy) in rather a lot of sauce. Tasty and filling, but the flavor profile is confusing.

The Missouri Information Analysis Center (MIAC) issued on February 20, 2009 a report intended for law enforcement personnel only entitled "The Modern Militia Movement," which described common symbols and media, including political bumper stickers, associated with militia members and domestic terrorists. The report appeared March 13, 2009 on WikiLeaks[89] and a controversy ensued. It was claimed that the report was derived purely from publicly available trend data on militias.[90] However, because the report included political profiling, on March 23, 2009 an apology letter was issued, explaining that the report would be edited to remove the inclusion of certain components.[91] On March 25, 2009 MIAC was ordered to cease distribution of the report.[92]
Speaking of making mistakes here’s one of mine. One of the first things I ‘put back’ (as my Mom use to say in the fall before my Dad was out of work due to bad weather at the quarry), was a couple of extra bottles of vegetable oil. Well, other stuff got in front of them on the shelf and pretty soon they were 3 or 4 years old. Yes, they were rancid when I opened them. Taught me a good lesson on keeping track of what you have and using it before it goes bad. They are marked ‘not to eat’ and are now used to fuel some lanterns outside when we have cookouts.

Greer has a palpable certainty that some kind of shit is going to hit some kind of fan and he believes his prepping is a commonsense reaction to that. He believes the threats could come from AI (artificial intelligence), economic collapse, an atomic bomb or even an EMP (electromagnetic pulse) – and the resulting chaos will see him hit the road to get out of the city.

Things may not go the same way as your favorite prime time series. Although you can take advantage of the tiniest opportunity to run, find an ally, and make a barricade, your chances of survival above the ground remains at a slim ten to twenty percent. An underground shelter provides a better hiding place, increasing your chances to live through war, pestilence, and famine.
During a June wildfire that ravaged the area—causing $40 million in damage and destroying 13 on-the-grid homes—firefighters discovered one of the bunkers and cabins after hearing about five minutes of “popping” sounds, according to a release from the Iron County Sheriff’s Office. When firefighters found one of the shelters, they discovered the sounds had been caused by explosive powder. They also found dozens of inactive novelty grenades that had been modified. The man who built the bunkers apparently planned to turn the grenades into useable weapons filled with explosive powder.
If the men on the blog Doomsday Preppers seem inordinately preoccupied with some distant future in which everything falls apart, he explains, it’s because that imagined scenario represents a moment when they get to feel like they’re actually useful. “I’ve got a chainsaw and a pickup truck and a little cabin in the woods and I can get my assault weapon out and I can be important,” he explains of the mindset. “I’m not really useful until something goes wrong.”
The primary purchasers of the product are water treatment plants. Pool owners are just discovering it, but most aren’t seeing the advantage of having a non-degrading bleach supply. Once they start figuring out the savings from buying calcium hypochloride, and the retail price comes closer to the cost of pool chlorine, calcium hypochloride will become a hot seller.
This one I’ve started doing recently, especially with the foods I’ve been buying online through either Amazon Pantry or Waitrose’s online delivery. Am really happy having this list around as it means I don’t have to remember what I need more of to hit the limit for free shipping or to have enough to get a certain amount off. It also means I don’t miss out on buying things I was running low on, as if there are staples I regularly buy and I forgot about them long enough to miss adding them to a cart, I usually really regret it.
Storing food for an emergency can be challenging but it does not have to be a chore. Eliminate the panic of attempting to get it all done at once and the process can almost be fun and game-like. Searching out deals – either with coupons or at sales – can be an adventure in and of itself. Involve the kids by asking them for suggestions and helping them make selections that they will enjoy eating.
Some of us may prep a little and others may prep a lot. Along the way, we may make some of the mistakes I have listed above, and most assuredly there will be others. At the end of the day, however, we all want to live a life filled with growth, opportunity and the ability to take care of oneself physically, mentally and spiritually. To me, that is what prepping is all about, mistakes and all.
Very useful information. Thank you for sharing that. We are hunters as we as grow a garden, we can most everything. I also have fruit trees and bushes, and that is canned as well. We have emergency kits stashed in a few locations, undisclosed, and money. I pray we will never need to use any of it but I am prepared. I really appreciate your helpful articles and will make sure to tell others about this site.
“It was never offered as a contrary movement to hippies by any means,” Mitchell explains. “I think maybe it was just one more expression of ‘You can try something new now.’” Survivalism was and still is, Mitchell believes, a product of late capitalist consumer society, premised on drumming up panic about various hypothetical catastrophes and furnishing people with products that will allegedly help survive them.

Learn about bulk foods and cooking methods that your can use when there is no power to your home. Many of the websites selling food will have blogs as well as links to helpful information. Why not use them to increase your overall knowledge and become familiar with additional tactics and strategies for storing food for the long term in a hassle free manner?

The Silo Home in Saranac, New York up in Adirondack Mountains makes another incredible underground shelter that will keep you alive when a nuclear bomb hits the big city. The property costs around $750,000 listed on the Saranac real estate. At the site, you will see a regular, cabin-like home serving as a decoy house. However, the real home lies underneath the closet.

32. Wood Burning Stove – These are great for not only cooking but if you love anywhere where there is snow on the ground 6 months out of the year can make great heaters if the power goes out. The price range can vary substantially depending on the size and quality of the stove. For just outdoor simple cooking checkout the wood burning rocket stove or the dead wood stove. For larger stoves check your grandparents old home 🙂

Purchasing survival gear is a necessary part of the prepping process but it should not be done to the exclusion of food, water, and medical supplies. The exception to this rule is water purification and fire-making tools both of which can be acquired for very little cost. For example, consider pool shock for water treatment plus a magnesium fire tool and dryer lint for fire-making.

Here’s an idea that is very useful. I found at the dollar store some space bags. I used one per person and filled it with winter gear, a multi tool, matches/lighter, a small solar light, a bit of emergency food, an emergency blanket, some basic first aid supplies, etc., then removed the air. If you pack it right, you will be able to fold it over and (I used a bungee cord) place over a strap for easy carry. Now you have an instant (and weather proof) instant kit. I also did this with a pillow (small personal one), blanket, sheet, towel, etc. Not only are they portable and protected, they store in less space.

Basically I would think in terms of mixed contents for five gallon buckets. I always use Food Grade buckets only combined with good Mylar bags and oxygen absorbing packs. By mixed contents I mean bags of rice (white) beans various types along with pasta products etc. this way you do not expose five gallons of rice or beans all at once. This extends the overall life of your food supplies.

I was surprised to read an MRE review here. I’ve had my fair share of them as well. And for the record, if I was the first to the box, my favorite was Menu 3 Beef Ravioli in meat sauce. Not half bad. I never considered them an option for disaster preparedness though because they were always too bulky for what you got in them. Most of the time in Iraq and Afghanistan, we’d open them up, and stow the spoon and the main meal and toss the rest back in the box for others to pick over later. We… Read more »

Hi Lisa, there’s lots of debate about this and the honest answer is – nobody knows for sure. It depends on the type of EMP, the frequency, how far away from the initial blast you are etc etc. We have an extremely in-depth post which goes into all of this if you want to dig deep on this subject – https://www.primalsurvivor.net/emp-protection-preparation/
One of the biggest issues with GMO food is the allergy cross-over. Because genes from nuts, fish, soy and other highly allergenic plants/animals are used in the to give the need seed the desired characteristics, they can trigger serious allergic reactions in people who had no way of knowing the food was dangerous or even which food it was that caused it! If that wasn't bad enough already, it will certainly only be worse in a grid-down situation where medical care is limited at best.

Above ground level, this 4,500 square-foot luxury house, located about 140 miles west of Dallas, has three bedrooms, four-and-a-half bathrooms, commercial-grade kitchen appliances, endless prairie and lake views, and even a private golf putting green. Below grade, there’s a 1,000-square-foot structure with reinforced steel walls, bunks for 12, plus a kitchen, laundry facilities, a periscope so survivors can view whatever remains on the post-apocalypse surface, and two hidden escape hatches. The bunker comes equipped with an NBC (nuclear, biological, chemical) filter system and a hydroponic plant-growing system. Six backup tanks of oxygen, as well as 10 years’ worth of emergency ready-to-eat meals, are included in the sale too.

“If you’re using it for emergency survival, the fact is you’re going to buy it once, and hopefully you’re not going to use it,” Shields said. “But it’s there as a safety net for you and your family.” That’s what intrigued me about freeze-dried food: You can wait up to a quarter-century to use it, but in an ideal world, you wouldn’t have to eat it at all.